Mideast snow has some delighted, others overwhelmed

Jan. 10, 2013
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by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM â?? Israelis slid down parts of the Old City on cardboard Thursday and soldiers worked with Palestinians to free people trapped by an extraordinary snowfall that blanketed the area to the delight and frustration of many.

Record-breaking rainfall followed by rare snow have ended a nearly decade-long drought in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Turkey, Egypt and the Palestinian-ruled territories. But the torrential rains and arrival of a few inches of snow Wednesday overwhelmed a region more accustomed to sandstorms than snow flurries.

Several storm-related deaths and injuries were reported. Two Palestinian women in the West Bank died when they fled a car surrounded by raging floodwaters; a man in Gaza was electrocuted. In Egypt, 10 fishermen were reported missing in stormy seas that forced the closure of ports on the Mediterranean.

But for most it was a time to enjoy.

"We came to Jerusalem from B'nai Brak especially for the snow," said Nahum Yisraeli, an ultra-Orthodox father from outside Tel Aviv who was helping his children build a snow fort.

Israeli officials closed the Ayalon Highway, the main north-south route into Tel Aviv, after a dry riverbed overflowed its banks and turned the highway it into a muddy lake. A unit of ultra-Orthodox Israeli soldiers worked side-by-side with Palestinian personnel to rescue three Palestinian men from a West Bank stream that had overflowed.

The hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country for refugee camps outside their border were trying to cope with the cold. Many are living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon near the Syrian border.

"The tents have been affected by the cold and rain and we are trying to move families to pre-fab mobile homes," Ali Bibi, UNHCR's liaison officer for the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees and NGOs, told The Media Line, a Jerusalem-based news agency.

Flooding was so bad in the Jordanian capital of Amman, residents joked that the value of their homes had risen now that they have sea views.

Five inches of snow fell in Jerusalem, the most in a decade. Schools and businesses closed and residents streamed to the walled Old City part of the capital, which sits majestically atop a mountain, to take photographs.

Others flocked to parks where they turned flattened cardboard boxes into sleds and built thousands of snow sculptures and snowmen. There was a run a carrots, according to grocers.

In a column in the daily Haaretz, Allison Kaplan Sommer summed up the Israeli fascination with inclement weather: the more extreme the better.

"Worrying about the weather makes them feel like they live in a normal country. It's raining rain - just like in Europe or America - not raining missiles."

Egypt's official MENA news agency said that ports of the northern Mediterranean city of Alexandria and Dakhila were shut down while Nile Delta cities suffered power outages and fishing stopped in cities like Damietta, northeast of Cairo.

The number of ships crossing the Suez Canal decreased by half because of poor visibility but were said to have gone back to normal Thursday, MENA reported. The fishermen who disappeared after their boat capsized near Marsa Matrouh on the western coast have not been found.